


a mindful remembrance

by tomas_abe



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alien Mythology/Religion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 07:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15529272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomas_abe/pseuds/tomas_abe
Summary: Kara Zor-El remembers.Alex once said she probably only remembers little. Afterall, Alex reasoned, most people don’t remember their life from when they were less than six. It’s simple brain physiology.Alex is wrong.Kara remembers Krypton. All of it.Well. Most of it.





	a mindful remembrance

**Author's Note:**

> The AU tag was made for fic like this.

When the Catco HR team first started interviewing her, one of the last questions they asked was _who is Kara Danvers?_

The perky redhead who asked the question did so without any hint of self-consciousness or irony. It was a sincere question chirped earnestly, the tip of the woman’s pen already on paper, just waiting to race across the notebook at any hint of an answer.

(Later, after having met Cat Grant, that initial interview would become even more hysterical, the preppy and New Age mumbo-jumbo of the redhead so incongruous with the vision of the icon that – effectively, efficiently and with a lot of no-nonsense-practicality – built an empire.

But that is later)

Back in that first interview, having just been asked that question, Kara Danvers pauses. It is a not a lengthy pause, stretching less than a few seconds, and yet it stands out, for Kara had been answering all other questions promptly and without hesitation. The mark of a practiced and prepared interviewee, much to the pleasure of the HR employees conducting the interview.

The tension in the room ratchets up, a wordless shift in the atmosphere as expectation grows and grows. 

Then the pause ends and Kara answers with some honest but misleading speech where she describes some virtues, shows some ambition, and admits to a few faults.

The moment of pause is forgotten as the interviewers move onwards, and the day ends well, with Kara being told that there’s a spot in Marketing that would fit her if she wanted, but that they think she could be a great match for a better position under Cat Grant herself as a PA.

She leaves the offices with an interview scheduled at 10:15 the next day and a smile.

But the question lingers.

///

It goes like this: one summer day, a man was merrily on his way home to visit his aging parents when a spaceship violently entered Earth’s atmosphere. 

The ship crashed into the earth, spilling dirt and soil around it, making a huge furrow on the ground, and the man was so scared – this part he always insists on. _I was so scared for you, Kara_ , he repeats and repeats. _There was so much danger, even then. Especially then._ He was scared for Kara, scared that someone else might reach her before he did. But he was so hopeful too, so damned hopeful of what it might mean, another spaceship just like his – and this part is important, because he had been led to believe that his birth home was no more, yet here came someone or something from that same place, landing years after he did. 

But no one else had reached Kara before him, and Krypton was still dead. 

He opened the ship as soon as he landed, ripping the top off to reveal a pale-faced Kara, and he extended his hand towards her, a gesture of aid, of compassion. Of awe. And Kara took his hand, for she understood that she was in dire need of help, but mostly because she had seen the big crest boldly stamped across his chest and had recognized it immediately, viscerally, down to her very marrow. 

And then he asked who she was in a language other than the one she had grown with.

He asked softly, evenly, calmly – careful to not frighten her as he gently lifted her from the mangled confines of her pod – he asked this delicately and when he repeats the story he always assures her it was for this reason only. He has to, because saying otherwise would be admitting that, when Kara first looked up at him, brows straining against the sunlight, eyes hurting underneath the brightness, there was something different about her gaze. 

Something off.

He couldn’t explain it, for it wasn’t something he could put into words. Kara’s eyes were sharp, and when he looked at them it was as if they were looking past him, through him – not in the way his own eyes look when seeing through things – fixed on some spot behind the horizon he couldn’t see. She had blue eyes like him, the hue a striking azure, but for an instant they looked darker, as if shadowed by a camera’s polaroid filter. 

Then they cleared, and she smiled tremulously up at him and touched a hand to the ridged crest on her shirt before touching the one on his costume and then she called him Kal-El. 

_That’s how I knew you were brave_ , Clark likes to say but Kara knows that it really means that that’s when he started to worry. That she might prove to need more than he could adequately provide.

He was not wrong. 

(She never really did answer his initial question)

///

A long long time ago, around the beginning of the universe, Rao was there. 

Stuck in an infinite spacetime curvature. 

Lonely. 

In a fit of impotent anger and grief he curled up into himself tightly. So tight that his density became infinite. And as he cried, he trembled. And from there, time began. 

With the birth of time, the universe expanded at an ever-increasing rate. And Rao, sensing the expansion, broke a tiny piece of himself and flung it into this stretching universe. But the universe was expanding fast, so fast that fluctuations occurred often. And these, in turn, caused structures to appear. 

Dust motes, the beginnings of galaxies. 

And Rao’s heart – for it was his heart what he gave to the universe – got stuck in one of these irregularities, where density was heavier. And the organ, heavy still with loneliness, attracted atoms and smaller particles until suddenly… he was a star. With light and enough gravity to pull other cosmic dust in and create planets.

And thus Krypton was born.

( _And, under Rao’s light, so were we. And now Rao was not alone, for he had us, his children_ )

And many many many years later, so was Kara Zor-El.

///

When Kara Zor-El first meets Eliza Danvers she does not really see her.

The world is still too bright, too blue, too sharp and too loud and just, overall, too much for poor Kara’s senses. Thus, when Kara is first ushered into Eliza’s home, into Eliza’s arms, into Eliza’s heart, she does not really see Eliza.

It isn’t until later that night, Clark long gone and Kara still so afraid, that she looks at this woman’s face and feels some tendril of familiarity slither onto her chest. 

An image starts to surface: a stately and tall blonde – similar enough to the human, but with elegant dress and a young bearing – looking down at Kara with blinding love. And Kara adores her back. How could she not, having felt that love shining down at them?

The image fades but there is always a bit of warmth, when she looks upon Eliza.

(It might be because of her face)

It must be because Kara grows to love her. 

///

Kara Danvers is born Kara Zor-El.

Except she’s not.

In a way, she is. She is born from the birthing matrix and given to the ones who provided the genetic material that brought her into being. 

Zor-El and Alura In-Ze name her Kara and, in the tradition of the times, her higher-ranking parent gives her their name as her surname. And thus, she is born as Kara Zor-El, and she grew as Kara Zor-El for years, and, near Krypton’s end, she thought she’d die as Kara Zor-El. Thus, reasons logic, she must be no one else but Kara Zor-El. 

Except she might not be.

///

Once upon a time, a child was born to parents who were important in matters of state and governing.

The father was a leader of leaders, an explorer of the unknown, and his discoveries were legendary throughout the cosmos. 

The mother was a leader of leaders, an authority over the righteous, and her wisdom was legendary throughout the cosmos.

The child, in turn, was groomed to be a leader of leaders, a peace keeper amongst them all, known throughout the cosmos as a legend.

But the parents, for all that they had privilege and power in their grasp, soon found themselves on the wrong side of a war they could not win. 

(For how can one defeat a planet? How can one change the tides? Rule over the skies?)

Instead of fighting a losing battle, iron skies above, the intelligent father and the wise mother sought a way to ensure their child’s survival. They desperately looked everywhere for any option – a place to hide, a place to run, a way to flee – and they did so in secret, aware of the selfishness of this but unwilling to risk their child, even at the expense of their compatriots and friends… 

_What happened next?_ asks a girl, engrossed in the tragic tale being wobblily woven by the story-teller. _What did they find?_

They found nothing. They looked and they looked but they found nothing. So, thus faced with the reality of no escape, they surrendered, hoping for mercy. But still these parents, these brave foolish parents, knew that they would die. Killed by a planet in the midst of rebellion, drowned by the tides of violence.

What they did not expect was for them to be punished for their selfishness by first being forced to watch their child be executed before them, any hope for a future dashed.

_Did it hurt?_ asks the girl, blue eyes bright with tears, horror etched into every muscle of her trembling frame.

Dying? Oh yes. It hurt terribly. The child hurt so badly, for so long, that even as he lay dead at the feet of his parents he kept hurting still. Kept screaming still. And the rebels heard the pain and realized what they had done, and the whole planet heard the screams and could not stand the sound, so the weapons of violence were put down, and the tides of calm returned, and the skies turned red once more. 

And the parents, who remained alive through it all, lived in grief but also lived with a broken sort of pride, for their son had become what they had wanted him to be from the start: a peace-keeper, known throughout the cosmos as a legend. 

And the screams? They stopped after a while. 

One day the boy finally found himself looking beyond his pain and he saw that the world had changed in the time spent hurting. He stood and walked beyond the temple that had been erected around him, past the curious gazes of the keepers of the temple and into the world. 

And it was wondrous, for it had come to be that cities spiraled into the skies and children lived without fear of death and Krypton knew peace. 

By the grace of Rao, Krypton knew peace.

///

Kara Zor-El remembers.

Alex once said she probably only remembers little. After all, Alex reasoned, most people don’t remember their life from when they were less than six. It’s simple brain physiology.

Alex is wrong.

Kara remembers Krypton. All of it. 

Well. Most of it.

She remembers her childhood, idyllic for the most part. She remembers her father’s broad hands, cradling her face as he kneeled in front of her and brought her brow to his. A daily morning ritual.

(Zor-El’s hands were actually quite slender compared to-)

Kara also remembers her mother’s voice, the soothing cadence of it as she dictated ruling after ruling into the family archives. Sometimes she’d let Kara wear her work robes and play out the role of abjudicator. A fruitless enterprise that would always end in Kara dissolving into a mess of hysterical giggling as Alura made up increasingly ridiculous cases and delivered hilarious rulings with a straight face.

Kara remembers Del-Or. The youth of his face, the way the wild curls on his head bounced with every step. He always greeted her with a beaming smile. And there was no game he was unwilling to play, no mischief he was unable to do, no prize that would make him betray her confidence. He was her best friend. There was no adventure Kara ever left him out of.

(Except for that last one. A journey across the stars, far beyond anywhere they had ever gone.

Del would have loved it.

She hopes he made it to Rao’s light)

Kara remembers so much: the beauty of Argo City, the equipment in her father’s lab, the colorful clothing of her neighbors, the terrible cooking of her mother, the way Councilor Dir-Or would always catch her after she threw herself from the top of his stairs, no matter the angle. 

She remembers learning mathematics and she remembers designing music for the evening prayers at her local temple and she remembers making Uncle Non a celebration pin for his cloak after he was promoted to Officer. She remembers the flustered but pleased grin he had given her when she had shyly presented it to him. 

Kara remembers screaming themselves hoarse during the final garatta match between the Kryptonian and Daxamite planetary teams and she remembers swimming in the local plasmid pools and she remembers her mother’s dancing and her father’s humming and she remembers glittering oceans and vast deserts and the way Del-Or had blushed after she had asked him to debate during the Lightingale Festival and she remembers the way their grandfather would laugh with his whole body, as if he had to express every single bit of mirth through the entirety of his being. 

She remembers the horrible things too. 

Kara remembers the barren fields, the wilted gardens, the horrible iron storms that would turn the skies metallic grey. She remembers the somber furrow of Dir-Or’s brow, the strained grimace on Aunt Astra’s face, the way Uncle Non had become hateful and cold. She remembers the pangs of hunger that became normal with years of rationing and she remembers the fevers that wiped out most of the Artist Guild and they remember the rumors rushing in from other cities: of how soldiers were defecting, how scientists were shooting down anyone trying to leave the temporary detainment centers, how the Regional Councils had recalled every traveler abroad for they feared that one of Krypton’s enemies might hear of how vulnerable they are and decide to settle scores.

The totality of her remembers it all.

She remembers hiding from riots and remembers creating colorful windows and remembers sneaking into a room loud with hissing, which is good because it deafens her footsteps as she nimbly takes some data rings from the inside of some visiting hellgrammite’s coat.

(She remembers dying hurts. 

But only sometimes. Other times it is so quick all she feels is a flash of heat, a bubbling under her skin and then she’s gone.)

And at times, she wonders. Who would she be? If she forgot?

But Kara remembers.

///

Kara Danvers is just another regular person.

Except when she isn’t.

Thing is, Kara Danvers is normal, for the most part. Kind and goofy and a bit shy, if slightly forgettable. 

Except when she isn’t.

People notice sometimes. Just an oddity or two. Little quirks easily explained away or soon forgotten. 

_Danvers_ , someone calls. And there is a momentary pause, a second of utter stillness as an inaudible question flashes through Kara’s brain–   

( _Who answers?_

And it is always asked, ever since Kara realized the truth, ever since the answer first changed, if only for a second.

_You do Kara_ , echoes inside her head, a momentary sense of faint exasperation pelting her nerves as if the sky had opened up and poured rain over her)  

_Danvers_ , someone calls again and together Kara moves, all of her twitching to the speaker with a bright if somewhat sheepish smile, the movement followed by an excuse – one that falls easily from between their teeth – about not noticing the call.

Another example:

Kara gets their first walkman when she is fourteen. It’s a sturdy thing, better at enduring her treatment of it than anyone had expected it to be. And Kara _loves_ it. Loves it in all of its clunky beaten-up glory. Loves it except for the times when a song sinks into her, cracking her open so that the fullness of her spills from between her edges, pulling at her hands.

Alex rolls her eyes every time Kara uses the beloved walkman. It frustrates her, she says, to see the way Kara switches songs every thirty seconds or so.

Smiling, Kara ignores her sister’s grumblings with good cheer and blasts a Britney Spears song through her headset.

Her being cracks.

_I want to hear all of it_ , she pleads.

Her thumbs switch the track instead.

(Alex sighs in exasperation)

Really, just an oddity or two.

///

Kara Zor-El crashes into earth with nothing but the clothes on her back, her mother’s necklace and a broken pod.

Except that’s not true.

In a way it is. Of the physically tangible, those are her only belongings. But Kara has a little more to her name. She has more, tethered to her mind.

Her body sometimes feels as if it had become a prison – another Phantom Zone – without her knowledge, but one designed exclusively for her, made to fit all of her and nothing less nor nothing more. 

And still, the skin-bones-cage of her being suits her little in that sometimes she forgets that it was supposed to be hers. 

(Sometimes she drifts to the back of her mind and by the time she jolts herself aware once more she finds that, somehow, her body has moved and laughed and thought and slept without her.)

At first, she doesn’t realize what has happened. They do the same thing. They say the same things and choose the same foods and feel the same loss, the same hollowed out pain. 

At first, the border between herself and themselves is so utterly thin that it is practically non-existent. A line where there should be a river, a lake, an ocean. Instead, it’s just the staticky haze of some distant background noise. 

And the ever-present grief. 

At first, Kara thinks her jumbled-up thoughts and vivid day-dreams are just the Phantom Zone haunting her still, her mind having been so focused on staying sane that it invented all these different sort of lives that she could have lived. 

All these people she could have been. 

She floats through empty dark space and imagines being an artist with a keen eye, an explorer with an unerring sense of direction, a prince in ancient times, a thief who is quick-witted and swift-footed, a loyal and brave guard, a scientist like her uncle or perhaps a wizened old woman who knows it all. Kara spends over two decades dreaming up lives and, detangling those dreams – so twisted together as to seem almost memories – would take time as she adjusts to this new singular life of hers.

Except, the thoughts don’t detangle. 

Kara struggles to find the spot where she ends and these fictional lives begin, but she increasingly finds that she can’t separate these existences. Parts of her are now them and parts of them have become her and the melding of it all leaves her hesitant and frustrated.

(Is she a dead thief in the body of a girl? Is she a girl thinking she is a dead thief? 

Or is she just insane? 

Perhaps this is just another dream life? 

Another could have been)

Thankfully, she is too busy to spiral obsessively into this existential crisis of hers. 

Learning to fit in – to be human – becomes a full-time endeavor. It takes all of her concentration to rein in her newly acquired senses, to tense her muscles at the adequate force, to speak the human language fluidly and without strangeness, to learn of the social norms, to watch television and read books and listen to music and sink into pop culture enough to be able to decipher whatever it is that these aliens keep jabbering at each other.

And so, at first, all of her is focused on the task at hand, and thus, Kara does not realize the truth.

At first.

///

Kara Zor-El’s survival was an almost impossibility. A gift. 

It has to be.

(To think otherwise would be to consider it a curse, and it cannot be a curse. It cannot it cannot it cannot-)

Sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, she gets a little confused on what she survived. Was it a planet-wide rebellion? A continent-encompassing manhunt? The violent mercies of a ravaging disease? 

She always ends up remembering though, because Krypton is a loss they carry no matter the era.

Once Kara realizes the truth of her situation she prays for days and days on end. She prays for all who died with Krypton. For all who died before Krypton did. She prays for herself. 

It doesn’t change anything, and Kara is left with the crippling fear that Rao may be too far away. 

(Rao may not hear)

She prays anyways. 

///

Supergirl gains a reputation of being surprisingly good in figuring out how other alien tech works.

Except for the times she isn’t.

Still, Kara often finds herself working on some alien device at the DEO in the dead of night. Long past when most people leave, at a time where only a skeletal crew mans the building and the humming of the fluorescent lighting practically reigns supreme.

One night, after weeks of little sleep and even less rest, Kara is working on a device, specifically the transformer part of a device, which, when fully assembled, might be a portable atlas or might be a blaster cannon but the not knowing is part of the fun.

She’s about to insert a power cell into the device, besides the transformer, when a voice rings out across her ears.

_I wouldn’t do that if I were you._

Startled Kara whirls around and comes face to chest with a tall tall man. The wide chin, the blue eyes, the dark hair curling just so-

_Clark?_

_Not quite_ , the man answers with a wry familiar grin. 

Kara takes a step back and takes a closer look. The curve of the lips is different from Clark’s, more lopsided. The nose is different too, larger. And the clothes-

It’s ceremonial robes that she hasn’t seen in years. Actually, the last time she saw them was on-

_You put that in there and you would have fried yourself a little_ , Jor-El continues, seemingly undaunted by Kara’s ongoing silence.

Kara looks down at the power cell and device. There is no reason they can’t go together. The device is off, the coupler is fixed, the cell is seamless. 

A pressure grows behind her eyes, almost like a headache but clearer, a compulsion beating a rhythm against her brow ( _look closer look closer look closer_ ) but Kara does not see.

Until, suddenly, with a click, she does. 

The device, which has proven to be a challenging fix, seems alright for the most part. The ferromagnetic core is in position, the insulation is fixed. But the coils. The secondary coils are bent, curved inwards enough that there would be no magnetic field produced when the power cell gets inserted. 

And now that she sees, the mind does as it often does and follows that thread to its logical conclusion: no magnetic coils means no transfer of current and thus, thanks to the safety measures Kara just painstakingly installed, instead of the transformer blowing up, the power cell would have to discharge excess energy through grounding.

Specifically, grounding using Kara’s hand as point of conduction. 

The power cell has enough charge to power half of National City for a whole minute. 

Kara would have been more than a little fried, she’d be a smoking husk for Alex to find in the morning.

_Would that be so bad?_ some part of her asks, she’s unsure of which but the desire floods her senses, settles beneath her nails and fingers twitch towards the cell jerkily, held back by some other part of themselves but still craving a swift ending to it all. 

No more pain no more struggle.

( _No more no more no more **please**_ )

Shakily, Kara regains control of her twitching hands and she sets the power cell back on the lab bench before staggering away to the nearest trash bin, where she immediately proceeds to empty her stomach.

The shame burns in her chest. What the hell was she thinking? After all the sacrifices that had been made to get her to this present, to this world where she lives and breathes and dreams?

( _What sacrifice?_ she wants to ask.  
_I’m the one living with the consequences of your actions_ she wants to scream.  
_You stayed behind and **died** not out of sacrifice but out of shame_ she wants to snarl.)

Jor-El is gone when she stands and Kara swallows down all the things she wants to say, for why waste her breath speaking to herself?

Instead, begrudgingly, she disassembles the device, strips it piece by piece until there is nothing left but rubble.

(And if the action is fueled by a lingering sense of guilt, well. It’s not as if all of Kara knows that)

///

Every Kryptonian followed the faith.

No exception.

If a human were to be told this, they would extrapolate from what they know of human behavior and assume widespread proletyzing. They’d assume that it was some cultural thing, an upbringing of indoctrination. They’d be skeptical of the claim, for, in human experience, even growing up with a religion doesn’t prevent some people from being non-practicing. Or converting to some other faith. Or just never believing in the first place, the rituals just a meaningless habit too practiced to shake but never done with particular intent. 

So, when Kara Zor-El first mentions this aspect of Kryptonian culture, no one really understands the true scope of what she means. 

And Kara had been too shell-shocked, to know how to explain it properly. Kal-El, _Clark_ , had been too human and too busy to inquire further. Jeremiah and Eliza had been too focused on normalcy to encourage her speaking more about it. And Alex – the last person Kara ever told – well, she had been too young back then, to know how to ask the right questions.

If anyone had probed further though, if anyone had questioned more, prodded deeper. They’d know this:

Every Kryptonian followed the faith.

No exception.

For Krypton was not Earth. Even if asked, Kara would be unable to explain the theory behind it, no matter how much science she knew in her lives, because there are literally no human words, but the bottom line is that Kryptonians were firm believers of the existence of some sort of afterlife.

In Krypton, when someone dies, there is some latent imprint of the deceased’s consciousness. To some extent. Soul, mind, the afterimage of fading electrical impulses. Whatever description works. The point is that something is left behind.

_Does it not disappear?_ asks the imaginary interrogator.

_Does matter just stop existing?_ Kara imagines would be her response. Because everyone of her knows that even if something is not on a visible dimensional plane does not mean it is not there.

And then Kara imagines that she’d get into a detailed explanation of the death rites. Of how her people would pray to light the way to Rao, their sun. For words have power. And prayers give direction. 

_How?_ asks this imaginary person, who Kara imagines would like more of an explanation.

And Kara imagines she would smile, amused, and cheekily respond with: _indoctrination_. 

She’d explain that if a human were to die and she prayed Kryptonian prayers it would be useless for them, for they have not been trained since birth to respond in a certain way to the words. Of course, the actual science behind the power of words is rather complicated and involves quantum entanglement and other more complex physics phenomena that even most Kryptonians were incapable of comprehending but yes, in summary, it would be useless for humans. 

And then Kara would explain why their prayers send their dead to Rao – how it is not only because Rao is their Parent but because Rao shares a similar psychic energy to that of their dead.

_Wait, you mean Rao is alive?_ the person would ask, full of disbelief perhaps. Or maybe amazement. Sometimes Kara waffles on what human response is more likely to such a pronouncement.

Her answer always stays the same though, in this imaginary conversation:

_Is your god not alive?_

It would be said gently, for she is not always sure of the religion of the imaginary asker and she does not wish to inflict pain. But after asking this she’d give no time for an answer, instead focusing on describing how generations of Kryptonians rest in Rao’s light now. And if the asker is particularly bright, which Kara always imagines them to be, at some point they’d ask what happens when Rao dies. 

For stars do that sometimes.

And here is where faith and spirituality enter the picture, for while the rites were science, no one, not even the brightest of their scientists, knew what happened once one joined Rao. 

Kara would explain that there were different interpretations of course. Some believe it was just like the body matter. One becomes part of Rao but there is no awareness. Just death. And when Rao dies, the psychic remains of their people will be scattered by the explosion and thus we will remain part of the universe in some way, even if we will never consciously sense it.

And some part of Kara believes that. 

But most of her believes in the old teachings. Remembers the story everyone was raised with of Rao splitting himself and sending his heart out into the universe, seeking. 

_What does that mean? Rao being only part of a whole?_ asks the curious person, again proving their abundance of wits.

To which Kara will smile and respond with the last line from the sacred scrolls she read in all their youth:

_“And when our Rao dies, there will be no need for Fear, for the rest of Him sees us. And He, in his boundless Compassion, will keep us Together, as One.”_

It is such a shame. That no one ever asks.

///

One day, Kara wakes up to her mother asking if she wants more dinner. Kara says yes but the niggling feeling of something forgotten climbs between her shoulder blades. 

A quick check out the window confirms that the skies are red.

(She isn’t sure why she thought that would not be the case)

After wolfing down her mother’s terribly uninspiring meal, Kara retires for her evening prayer. 

At first, she thinks of settling in her old room for it, but there is some insistent restlessness to her feet that brings her to the Temple of Al-Kur. It’s thankfully empty aside from a young teen, perhaps still a boy, kneeling near the center of the room. 

Kara kneels at a respectable distance and begins her own prayers, but there is something charged about the air. Something electric but empty that doesn’t allow her to concentrate fully. So, she ends up leaving early, murmuring a quick prayer for peace (as is appropriate to do in the Last Prince’s Temple) as she departs, feeling distinctly unsettled.

The boy remains behind. 

(Kara isn’t sure why she thought that would not be the case)

The next few days are perfectly normal: 

Kara wakes up for her morning prayers, chats with Kal-El about his science apprenticeship through the Kelex line, then rushes for breakfast with her father before pressing her brow to his in farewell as they separate, him to his lab and she to court. She stands at hearings for the rest of the morning until they break for lunch, during which she alternates between eating with Councilor Dir-Or at the edges of the Judicial District, eating with her mother in one of their offices, or eating with Aunt Astra and Uncle Non at the nearest guardhouse. Then it’s back to work for a few more hours, hearing petitions and appeals before departing for home, where Del-Or and her exchange stories of their days over dinner or discuss their upcoming turn at the birthing matrix before retiring to their room and doing their evening prayers. 

Routine.

Except for the fact that there is an unusual joy in her chest at every action. 

She likes to think she’s a good-natured person who smiles easily and finds happiness in the day-to-day of life. 

But there is something other to the elation she feels tingling at her fingertips every time Astra smiles at her, or every time Dir-Or pretends to brace himself when he sees her at a higher vantage point, mimicking an extension of the arms, as if she were three again and throwing herself over the banister of his staircase. It’s a joke he has made for years but suddenly she finds herself laughing at it again, as if only just now seeing this comedy routine of his for the first time. 

And it extends to more than that: she rejoices at the comfortable rapport between herself and her uncle. She feels bliss every time Del accidentally bumps into her as he tries to brush past her in their cramped kitchen. Her parents, Rao bless them, respond to her extra exuberance by increasing their own joy. Kara doesn’t think she can ever be happier.

She’s wrong.

One night, a hand clamps above her mouth, which should, logically, terrify her into wakefulness. But somehow, although she jolts awake in surprise, she finds herself unbothered by the shadowed face leaning above her. 

It must be his grin. 

The twist of his lips is so familiar Kara finds herself relaxing into her bed. The man’s grin widens into a beaming smile that Kara finds herself matching.

_Who are you?_ she whispers up at him, conscientious of her husband quietly slumbering besides her.

His name is Van-Wul and he, explains the man, is a thief. 

_What are you going to steal?_ Kara asks, leading Van by the hand to her kitchen and offering him a seat.

His eyes brighten at the question and soon his whole plan rushes out from between his teeth. He was planning on stealing the dragon eggs Del has been caring for in the last few months. 

It was the perfect plan, he insists – scaling the building using vidro-magnetic gloves, entering through their oft-open window, sneaking past Kara and Del, their sleep aided by a sedative slipped into the fresh bread Del had picked up for dinner. The incubator would be easy to hack thanks to a cryptograph-fob he had lifted from a particularly forgetful machine technician. Then he’d just sneak back – eggs safe in a portable incubator carried on his back – and turn in the bounty to the Daxamite royal that had financed the heist.

Perfect plan. 

Except…

As he had been doing reconnaissance on their habits, he had found himself oddly attached to Kara. Not in a feelings kind of way. Rather in a I-can-somehow-predict-every-single-thing-you-do-and-that-is-very-unsual kind of way.  

_As if I had a direct line to your brain_ , he giddily whispers, one of his hands still grasping Kara’s. 

And it makes a sort of sense, this impossible story of his. Because as he had laid it out, carefully and methodically, Kara had found herself easily guessing what he’d say before he said it. 

And it felt good to hold his hand. Right. 

Needless to say, Del is very surprised the next morning, when he stumbles into breakfast being served by a – very recently – reformed thief. Her husband, Rao bless him, takes it all in stride and welcomes the new addition to their household with open arms.

It will not be the last familiar stranger to be invited into their home. 

Soon after meeting Van, Kara will bump into Eira-Gur during a visit to her aunt and uncle. The dark-haired guard will be humming the same tune as Kara, the lyrics long-forgotten. Aunt Astra will stare with great amusement as the two recently acquainted women eat the same dish with the speed and grace of a starving Eltkrorian, finish each other’s sentences, and take turns in making Uncle Non break his serious façade with laughter. 

That night, Del will sigh fondly when Kara presents Eira at dinner, to great applause from Van, before going to get another bowl from their shelves. 

(Kara loves him for it. 

For sharing this adventure with her.

For his desire to do so in the first place.)

By the time the Judiciary Guardship drags an Alex Danvers into Alura’s courtroom, Kara’s home is also the residence of an eccentric pilot, a cheery artist, and a long-retired city archivist who takes great pleasure from badgering Del about how he’s raising his eggs.

So, one might see why it is so difficult, for Kara, to believe what Alex is pleading her to remember. 

(Her life is here, with the people she loves, her family and those who are as much her as she is them)

But Alex pleads and cries and Kara does, inexplicably, unreasonably, love her. Which must be why, then, a part of Kara begins to remember. As evidenced by Uncle Jor-El entering the courtroom soon after it begins to tremble. He strides past where Alex is being held back, ignores her confused cry of _Clark?,_ and stands next to Kara in the same way she has always remembered him, tall and solid. Resolute. Kara looks at his eyes – at the sad droop of his mouth – and understands that Alex speaks true. For she is him and he is her and they know now that something must be trapping them here, in this fantastic delusion. And once Kara and Jor know, everyone of Kara knows, and so, for the nth time in living memory, Kara watches Krypton collapse and die.

One day, Kara wakes from an impossible dream and feels cold.

At least she is together.

///

Jor-El is born in Krypton. He dies there too.

Except for the part of him that doesn’t.

He initially thinks it’s not a part of him of course, but rather the entirety of him, what survives. 

But then he sees his son, baby Kal-El all grown up, and then the hand that reaches out for his boy is small and delicate and although he feels in control, feels himself making the movement…

That is not all he feels.

At first, he does not notice the fact that there is anyone else in this body. He sees the shell of his niece in his reflection and he mourns her loss deeply, but he knows that this world will not tolerate a grown adult in this childish form. 

So, at first, he moves as Kara would have, he speaks as she would have, reacts as he knows she would have.

(Does not question how it is that he knows so well the way Kara would react.

Does not question the overwhelming feel of loss and confusion and the tiny slivers of memory of Kara’s life that he had no part in)

But somewhere along the line, the truth comes out. Someone – most probably Alex Danvers, to whom he holds a strange mixture of both utter ambivalence and fierce unquestionable love – calls for Kara and he feels the body moving, feels the flex of muscle as someone responds and it takes less than a second for the realization to crash down on him that he is not as alone as he had thought. 

Horrified, he slams into the back of this shared mind of theirs, far from Kara. 

(The real Kara, his niece, alive and kind and _not him_ )

Except, she might be him.

Kara has all the best parts of him now – she _is_ the best parts of him now. She has other parts of him too, of course, the things he constantly wishes she’d never know. But still, Kara is in control, except some part of him is too. Always in control. They all are. There’s no fighting for it. No battle for dominance or desire to subsume everyone he is. Because they are everyone, he and she and them and they cannot get away from each other, cannot leave, cannot disperse. 

It wasn’t on purpose, this melding of selves. 

This is what Jor-El remembers: hoping to give Lara more time, he was desperately going against some of the soldiers sent by the Council once they learned of his treachery. Jor-El remembers fear as he was smashed against the floor, as he was hugging her mother goodbye, as he was sitting at home – praying, ready for the inevitable end – alone, as he was memorizing the grooves of his favorite sculpture, as they were clutching their cousin’s hands and dying from a soldier’s baton and already dead for almost a millennium.

It wasn’t on purpose. They didn’t mean to.

(Their face is her face, they know how young it was when they crammed into it.

Too young)

Jor-El didn’t mean to.

It’s just that the planet was dying, everyone was dead in an instant, and some went to Rao, ready for His embrace, and some got buried themselves on the chunks of rock already falling apart but no one was truly alive anymore.

No one but her.

That one tiny bright spot spinning in the distance, a frightened _screaming_ child. And some of them had already been pointed in the direction of Rao but hearing the screams, they _had_ to turn back. It was only meant to be momentarily, a second to soothe her pain.

At least, that’s what all of Kara thinks. 

She’s not sure. She themselves believes that everyone might be hurting if alone. So she’s glad they aren’t. Stronger together were the words right? 

( _I shouldn’t be here, it’s not what you need_ , she whispers.

_Stronger together, stronger together_ , she chants.

_I am hurting you_ , she murmurs back)

But they didn’t mean to.

///

Humans don’t see ghosts.

Kryptonians don’t either. But sometimes. Sometimes they feel echoes of people. Temporal fluxes that give glimpses of who used to exist. 

Kara should carry over a billion echoes on her shoulders, many more dogging her heels.

But only a few live between her ears.

(The rest disappeared with Krypton’s demise. A second death just as painful as the first)

///

Kara Zor-El lets go of Fort Rozz and remains held aloft by the non-gravity of space.

She prays.

_There will be no need for Fear, for the rest of Him sees us. And He, in his boundless Compassion, will keep us Together, as One._

**Author's Note:**

> Between the minimal dialogue and the strange tenses and pronouns, this is a bit of a stylistic departure from most of my other work.  
> Please, let me know what you think.


End file.
